Discussion:
#1: Federico Lucifredi (flucifredi) (2009-01-26 20:52:46)
I prefer to start with disabled, offer option to run at first search.
We are proliferating checkboxes in the installer too much.

#8: Stephan Kulow (coolo) (2009-02-10 15:32:39) (reply to #1)
I wholehearty agree. Having specific applications in the installer is
definitely something that we shouldn't do. Have it disabled by default
and make it easy to enable.

#2: Kevin Dupuy (kdupuy9) (2009-01-29 23:40:17)
I prefer a more sane option than disabling it by default... instead,
allow the user to go in and uninstall it from the installation software
screen, just as they would any other app (perhaps make 'Desktop Search'
pattern, installed by default?) We just need to insure that
uninstalling Beagle doesn't throw up any dependency errors.

#3: Eric Springer (erikina) (2009-01-30 00:16:23)
Every single openSUSE install I've done has resulted in beagle being
removed. It slows down the computer, and the firefox extension throws
lots of errors. I'm quite happy with how easy it is to remove, and I
can see why it's useful -- but unless its seriously improved, I think
it should be removed (by default)

#6: Thomas Beimel (rheydtergekko) (2009-02-01 16:22:09)
Yes this would be an perfect option during installation. Especially
because I prefer to have a new installation that consumes as less
resources as possible. I do not need indexing service and I think many
others as well.

#7: Andri Andreas Priyanto (turtlix) (2009-02-05 11:20:44)
I haven't use beagle since I install openSUSE, and maybe wouldn't or
never But I don't know other user.
I always remove beagle from my gnome-session-properties.

#10: Johnny Stovall (oouc) (2009-02-11 22:50:14)
Beagle should be disabled by default. Everyone in the DFW Linux Users
Group complained when Suse added it. It causes nothing but trouble for
me.

#12: Bart Otten (bartotten) (2009-02-16 01:13:58)
I agree with the people voting to disable it by default. I think we
have to keep focus on the 'consumer' and most of them won't use
Kerry/Beagle.
ps. KDE4 -and- Beagle is useless. KDE4 uses Strigi and Nepomuk.

#13: Sebastian Rösgen (palimpseste) (2009-02-17 12:55:11)
Despite all who now have voted for this proposal, I just have to vote
against it. At least in the forms discussed here. I use Beagle heavily
as do some other people I got convinced to use openSUSE instead of
Windows. A good Desktop search was among the arguments to move these
people to change their OS (others arguments were Deskbar etc... which
btw. does not necessarily need Beagle but gets some interesting
advantages IF Beagle is activated). Why not simply ask at startup how
to configure some basic system defaults. Among them there could be
beagle. So concerning the proposals of Federico Lucifredi, Stephan
Kulow and so on, I am definitively of the same mind. Beagle should be
installed by default, but it should be easy to switch it "on" or "off"
whenever one wants.

#14: Eric Springer (erikina) (2009-02-18 01:05:18) (reply to #13)
Yes, a search is very useful. Yes, some people find beagle beneficial
(as apparently you do). But the vast majority (Currently the vote is at
47:1) of people it doesn't work well with. And that's truly an amazing
statistic, as it's super easy to see and use the feature it provides
but much harder to see that it's beagle causing so many (resource
related) problems.
And if that statistic alone isn't enough to convince you it's not a
sensible default, then I have absolutely no idea how to. There really
should be a resemblance of QA in place, especially for default (and
completely optional) packages.

#15: Sebastian Rösgen (palimpseste) (2009-02-19 12:04:23) (reply to
#14)
Ok, I hope that my comment did not sound as gruff or ... brusque, for I,
basically, hoped to present a different opinion. What I did not intend
was to, evidently, irritate somebody by not completely assenting to his
opinion.
See: I am working for a university in Germany. We have 45.000 students
and a staff of employees of a size appropriate for this amount of
students. We rely heavily on the capabilities of a search system (to be
honest: in this case not beagle, but somethings similar to beagle). I
am one person who posts here but, to stay in your line of
argumentation, statistically I represent so many single individuals,
that my vote could be multiplied by a "pretty fight factor". Now the
problem is that most of these people just use a search feature but do
not understand of configure it. But they will notice when it is gone .
These users do not vote, they are not involved in community work, they
are not programmers, not system architects, not members of an online
community. But they use systems like beagle. I know, as I stated in my
first post, some people, which I got to switch their OS, from Windows
to openSUSE. These people will miss features, too. Especially if you
are so eager so simple remove this feature despite the fact that it was
part of the distribution for many years.
The more I write here, the angrier I get. I mentioned that Lucifredi
and Kulow are of another opinion (disable but no remove the software;
make it possible to switch it on or off when needed), an opinion I
agree with. Is it possible that YOU ignored that part? This is quite
normale for the usual open source community. To me it is a relatively
illusive concept, the more I deal with it (and I deal with it for now 9
years) the more I learn about the ignorance it contains. Too many
people choose rather to ignore those who have to vote (usually called
users) and instead see their opinion as the ultimate measure to decide
pro and contra. Did it come to your mind that about 80-90% of those who
start to create an account for a portal like openFATE, who pay the time
to write some comments and skip through all these proposals in this
portal, that 80-90% of these people might perhaps be programmers? Geeks
and nerds as they are called nowadays. This is no real statistic
representing the opinion of those who use a software, it is a statistic
of those how develop a software. Make this clear to you.
So to get back on a rather rational level: I recognize that you are of
another opinion. That most of the people here are. But, and that was
important to me, these votes in here are not a real representation of
opinions. I prefer openSUSE after all these years espcially because it
was bought by Novell. Because they do research in usability, which is
the only real way to ask the customers/the users, how to design the
software. That is why I said, that an easy startup QA for the normal
user is the best to do. Do not be too ignorant. The users know what
they want, even if they miss some technical versatily, they will still
take note of features that are missing, of bugs in the browser, of
missing parts in the system "that they know worked on a different OS"
or whatever else. Perhaps they annot name the source of the problem and
do not know if it is a real design issue or a real bug. But they will
say that the feature is not how they expected it to be.
I recently said to a colleague of mine that the times of Mac OS are
nearly over. The only real advantage they have is that they can design
an OS without paying too much attention to different hardware. They
know exactly which hardware their OS will possible have to run on. If
Linux with a nice GNOME, KDE, or-whatever-desktop would run out of the
box on ANY posible hardware, with all features running without a
problem (Audio, Bluetooth, 3D Graphics are still a problem as we know)
it would be undeniable that Linux will be the winner. I see progress
made well into that direction. I see that Linux is close to this goal,
to solve these issues in nears time (most Graphic Cards now easily
work, with only a few exceptions). So please do not disappoint me. I
have to lead discussions about Linux/Windows and Linux/MacOSX nearly
every week. I do not want to have them led in vain. Look at what Mac
and Windows do, they have a search system with an index. Make ours
betters, faster and less memory hungry instead of removing it. These
who switch from Windows/Mac to Linux (for instance to openSUSE) want to
find new and more useful features instead of fewer features.
I know this post was too long. I am sorry, but it thought it
necessary.

+ #16: Eric Springer (erikina) (2009-02-19 14:33:07) (reply to #15)
+ I agree with everything you said, but you must realize I/we aren't
+ arguing against search. We're arguing against beagle.
+ I personally use google desktop search on a daily basis. And it works
+ well. I assume that it does all its work when I'm not physically using
+ the computer (a policy that is ideal for desktop usage). I'm not
+ advocating its inclusion (primarily license reasons and kde integration
+ reasons) but you should see that I'm not against a search or anything
+ like that.
+ Beagle on the other hand, I've tried to give it a fair shot a few
+ times. To see if it has improved (something I will admit Banshee has
+ done). But its *always* problematic. Something that is echoed daily on
+ IRC and the mailing lists. The firefox extension causes huge amounts
+ errors and slow downs. The actual search program maxs out the CPU. IO
+ brings the computer to a crawl when I need to get work done etc. It's
+ just not pretty.
+ So if Beagle works well, I'd love to use it. But it doesn't and
+ shouldn't be included. Put it this way. I would really like to see
+ kernel initialization of graphics devices. However, until it's finished
+ and works properly -- I think we'd both agree that it shouldn't be on
+ our systems. I know it's not a good test for everything, but have you
+ noticed how many other desktop distros have chosen to include beagle?